1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, more particularly, to a handheld electronic device having an improved calendar application for managing appointments and meetings that automatically checks for and notifies the user of scheduling conflicts with new appointments and meetings. The invention also relates to a method of managing appointments and meetings in a handheld electronic device that includes automatic conflict notification.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Such handheld electronic devices are generally intended to be portable and thus are relatively small. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices.
Many handheld electronic devices include and provide access to a wide range of integrated applications, including, without limitation, email, telephone, short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), browser, calendar and address book applications, such that a user can easily manage information and communications from a single, integrated device. These applications are typically selectively accessible and executable through a user interface that allows a user to easily navigate among and within these applications.
A typical calendar application provided on a handheld electronic device enables the user to, among other things, track and manage appointments and meetings and set reminders for various events and/or tasks. Specifically, users are able to enter particular appointments and meetings, including, for example, information such as the day, time, duration and location thereof. This information is saved and may be selectively manipulated and displayed to the user in various known formats, such as in monthly, weekly or daily views. In addition, users are also typically able to both invite other individuals to meetings and be invited to meetings by other individuals using the wireless communication capability of the handheld electronic device (invitations are typically sent and received using email messages). In the former case, the particular invitees are specified by the user at the time the new meeting is entered.
Typically, new appointments and meetings may be entered into a handheld electronic device by a user through a subroutine of the calendar application the enables the user to enter the relevant information. Similarly, another subroutine of the calendar application enables a user to accept or reject meeting invitations received from third parties, with appropriate information for accepted meetings being saved. For obvious reasons, a user will want to avoid scheduling new appointments or meetings that directly conflict with or are located too close in time with previously scheduled appointments or meetings.
Some prior art calendar applications utilized by non-handheld computing devices, such as a personal computer, include functionality wherein the entire database of calendar information maintained thereby is searched each time a new appointment or meeting is entered in order to determine whether conflicts exist. An example of such an application is the calendar application forming a part of the Outlook software application sold by Microsoft Corporation. However, due to memory and processing constraints present in most handheld electronic devices, it is not possible or practical to search the entire database of calendar entries each time a new appointment or meeting is to be entered. Thus, with current known handheld electronic devices, if a user wants to avoid scheduling new appointments or meetings (including those to which they are invited by third parties) that directly conflict with or are located too close in time with previously scheduled appointments or meetings, the user must manually check the calendar maintained by the calendar application for conflicts, either before, during, or after the steps of creating a new appointment. This will typically require the user to navigate through various different parts of the calendar application. These steps, while ultimately achieving the purpose of checking for conflicts, are inconvenient and time consuming. Thus, there is a need for a handheld electronic device that will automatically check for previously scheduled appointments or meetings that directly conflict with or are located too close in time with proposed new appointments or meetings.